Following the Under 20 South West trials held at Keynsham RFC on Easter Sunday, three of the Cornish players attending the trials have been selected for the South West.
Welcoming Yorkshire Carnegie to the Mennaye Field, the Cornish Pirates recorded a thoroughly deserved and eagerly sought-after win in what was their final Greene King IPA Championship home match of the season, reports Phil Westren.
In a precarious position at the start
of the season, under the direction of Chris Stirling the strengthened opponents
had climbed to sixth in the league table, just one place below the still
fifth-placed Pirates.
The return of scrum-half Alex Day
was the one change in the Pirates backs from the side that started at London
Scottish last time out, whilst in the forwards Danny Cutmore took the place of
an injured Toby Freeman in the second-row and John Stevens was named to wear
the number ‘7’ shirt.
After all present had observed an
impeccable minute’s silence in respect of innocent victims earlier killed or
injured at churches and hotels in Sri Lanka, and also not forgetting journalist
Lyra McKee who was tragically murdered during Easter in Northern Ireland, on an
otherwise perfect afternoon the Pirates also got off to a perfect start.
Young full-back AJ Cant opened the
scoring in just the first minute, his effort at the Newlyn gate corner well
converted by fly-half Javier Rojas Alvarez.
Yorkshire Carnegie, however, were
quick to respond, with full-back Chris Elder firing his penalty strike through
the Penzance posts.
Although Elder soon pulled a
long-range penalty attempt to the left of the posts, the visitors soon took the
lead for the first time after some potent forward play ended with hooker Dylan
Donnellan identified as a try-scorer.
A successful Rojas Alvarez penalty
saw the Pirates back in front, but when they looked to attack down the left an
error gifted Elder a 45-metres run in for a try that he also converted.
A second Rojas Alvarez penalty
narrowed the deficit to just two points, but after home flanker Matt Bolwell
was yellow-carded ‘Carnegie’ scored a converted try through winger Myles
Thoroughgood. On the stroke of half-time it left the scoreline reading 13-22.
The Pirates had played some
industrious rugby and the line-out was functioning well. At scrum time,
however, they had been put under pressure.
Whistle blown to start the second
period it was not long before the still 14-man Pirates were back into the
match. No. 8 Tom Duncan made a telling intercept, and with speedster Robin
Wedlake lending support the wing crossed for his tenth Championship try of the
season. Replacement fly-half Will Cargill, on for the injured Rojas Alvarez,
landed the conversion.
Several Pirates were having
impressive games, and none more so than hooker and man-of-the-match Dan Frost,
who four minutes later showed immense grit and strength to score a converted
try at the Penzance posts.
The Pirates went down to 14 men for a
second time in the match when Duncan was sin-binned and during his absence
Chris Stirling’s side got back in front with a converted try scored at the old
Western National corner by wing Elijah Niko.
In what was proving as hot a contest
on the field as the weather enjoyed off it, the pendulum swung back to the
Pirates when, on about the hour mark, Cargill kicked a penalty to again give
the Pirates a lead.
By now there was a sense that with
the spirit displayed by the Pirates they genuinely looked the likely winners,
which of course proved to be the case. Although feeling unfortunate to lose a
third player of the afternoon to the sin bin when Cant was yellow-carded,
following a late red card shown visiting replacement hooker Joe Buckle the
result was wrapped up thanks to a second penalty kicked by Cargill.
To survive three sin-binnings
against opponents who were striving to build on a five-game winning run was
truly commendable and the players deserved to enjoy their post-match
celebrations. Along with their supporters, they surely did.
Cornish Pirates’ co-coach Alan Paver
had also envisaged the game being exciting and positive to overall make for
smashing occasion, and he was proved right.
Hey, you can’t beat the return of
that good old – good feel factor!
Cornish Pirates: 15 AJ Cant, 14 Robin Wedlake, 13 Rory Parata (Dan Koster 64), 12 Callum
Patterson, 11 Alex O’Meara, 10 Javier Rojas Alvarez (Will Cargill 38), 9 Alex
Day (Alex Schwarz 61); 1 Marlen Walker (Jack Andrew 61), 2 Dan Frost, 3 Jack
Owlett, 4 Danny Cutmore, 5 Brett Beukeboom (c), 6 Matt Bolwell, 7 John Stevens
(Dan Lee 64), 8 Tom Duncan.
Replacements (not used): Tom Concu, Jake Clemson.
Yellow cards: Bolwell, Duncan, Cant.
Yorkshire Carnegie: 15 Chris Elder, 14 Myles Thoroughgood, 13 Andy Forsyth, 12 Pete Lucock
(George Watkins 44), 11 Elijah Niko, 10 Jade Te Rure (Tom Bullough 65), 9 Sam
Wolstenholme; 1 Tom Hill (Andrew Foster 65), 2 Dylan Donnellan (Joe Buckle 61),
3 Craig Mitchell, 4 Fa’atiga Lemalu, 5 Matt Smith, 6 Richard Mayhew (Josh
Bainbridge 54), 7 Lewis Wilson, 8 Dan Temm.
I was delighted to be able to present Alex Ducker the Trelawny’s Army Supporters Club, Paul Bawden Cornwall man-of-the-match award, along with Cornwall RFU President Peter James.
Three tries in the space of sixteen minutes at the beginning of the second half by mercurial Camborne winger Alex Ducker helped Cornwall retain the Tamar Cup, for an eighth year in succession, against old foes Devon at a balmy Brickfields yesterday evening.
Ducker a late call
up, who ended his club season on Saturday by scoring four against Ivybridge to
break David Weeks’ club record at Camborne, carried on his stellar form in the
black and gold.
Apart from Ducker’s performance, there was plenty to enthuse about the Cornwall performance, ahead of more testing challenges in this season’s Bill Beaumont Cup, not least a return against Devon at Brixham on the 18th May.
Devon had the better
of the early exchanges taking a deserved lead thanks to a penalty from fly-half
Tom Putt.
Full-back Charlie
Briant then coughed up a golden chance for the home side with the line begging.
Cornwall began to
get their maul working with skipper Ben Hilton, flanker Tony Whittle and Ducker
all going close, before they got it right from a catch-and-drive with hooker
Tommy-Lee Southworth dotting down from the drive, fly-half Fraser Honey split
the uprights on his home turf.
Leading up to half-time Devon pressure saw a clever chip over the top from centre Mitch Pinkus with scrum-half Ben Watts winning the race to the touchdown for Putt to make the half-time score 10-7 to Devon.
Cornwall made four
changes at half-time and re-jigged the backline, which saw full-back Matt
Shepherd move to outside centre and Harvey Bell from wing to full-back.
It didn’t take long for the re-shuffle to work as Ducker arched his way to the line for the first of his tries with barely a minute on the clock, Shepherd kicking a fine touchline conversion.
Although Putt pulled
three points back for Devon with a penalty, Cornwall were soon deep in the
Devon twenty-two with the ball moved wide for Shepherd to serve up Ducker for
his second try, once more Shepherd banged over the extras for some daylight on
the scoreboard.
The Cornish forwards
continued to drive hard working an overlap for Ducker to get his third try,
needless to say Shepherd slotted his third conversion to effectively seal the
result.
Devon put Cornwall under pressure in the closing stages but the Cornish defence was top draw and kept Devon at bay, which was as equally satisfying as the result.
Ben Hilton Cornwall (Barnstaple) presented the Tamar Cup by Devon RFU President Treve Mitchell. – Photo
Cornwall’s head
coach Graham Dawe was satisfied with the performance on the night. “We have had
some good training sessions prior to tonight and looked at a number of players.
Some of the lads have put their hands up for selection in the Championship.
“I thought Tony Whittle
had a good game for us and I thought Rupert Edwards and Dan Sanderson gave us good
options in the second row along with Hilts.
“Rightly a lot of
praise will go to the backs but you have to get your foundations right up front
to get them good ball and we showed that.
“We shall have to
see who’s available for the Kent game, hopefully we will have some of the lads
from Redruth, Launceston and St. Ives also in the mix.”
Devon: Charlie
Briant, Billy Pinkus, Rhys Palmer, Mitch Pinkus, Kieran Lee, Tom Putt, Ben
Watts; Matt Dowick, Dean Avery, Charlie Tribble, Tim Coats, Karl Pearce, Tom McGratton,
Ben King, Caleb Sampson.
Replacements: Gaz
Walker, Aiden Taylor, Olly Schuster-Wood, Tom Bottoms, Dean Abrams, Peli Vea,
Jacob Nash, Ryan Lee, Lewis Paterson, Connor Bedwell, Jake Neville, Jordan
Watson, Jake Prophett-O’Neill, Josh Luxon.
Devon scores: Try,
Watts, Con, Putt, Pens, Putt 2
Cornwall: Matt Shepherd, Harvey Bell, Jon Dawe, Declan Matthews, Alex Ducker, Fraser Honey, Noah Nash; Dan Job, Tommy-Lee Southworth, Andrius Zacharovas, Ben Hilton (Capt), Rupert Edwards, Adam Hughes, Tony Whittle, Grant Randlesome.
Replacements: Hugh
Noot, Miles Davey, Charlie Nicholson, Dan Sanderson, Lewis Wells, George Jones,
Darren Livett, Taron Peacock, Fraser Nottle, Rhys Brownfield, Kyle Spear, Oliver
Aggiss.
Cornwall travel across the Tamar on Tuesday evening, 16th April, to
take on Devon at Plymouth Albion’s Brickfields ground at 7:30 pm in this
season’s Tamar Cup.
Cornwall will be looking to retain the Cup they defended successfully last season when they defeated Devon 24-12 at St. Austell.
Head coach Graham Dawe will once again be looking to field a competitive side running the rule over certain players with a view to the upcoming Bill Beaumont Cup campaign which begins against Kent on May 4th.
Cornwall Senior XV continue their preparation for
the 2019 Bill Beaumont County Championship with the annual Tamar Cup
game with Devon to be played at Brickfields Plymouth on Tuesday 16th April with a 7.30pm kick off.
This comes at a time when clubs and players are battling for promotions, some through the play-offs, making a big demand and asking for a big commitment from the players. Terry Carter and CRFU selectors want to put out on to the pitch the best team and are very aware of what is being asked of our players due to RFU league schedules and the timing of the Championships but the determination of Cornish players to pull on the ‘black and gold’ and represent their county is still as evident as it always was during previous campaigns with some that have ended up at Twickenham.
Wednesday 10th April is the last
training session for coaches Graham Dawe and Marek Churcher to assemble
the squad for the Tamar Cup. Captain Ben Hilton expects a busy evening
as players go through the preparation with injured and unavailable for
selection players on the touchline also making sure they are in the
frame for Championship games selection. At the St Austell Brewery team
building event senior players talked about the pride of being the best
and of playing for Cornwall being special and an honour.
Cornwall RFU look forward to some healthy support from Trelawny’s Army on the night.
Although the Cornwall Rugby Football Union (CRFU) 2019, Under 20 County
Championship campaign has ended, eight of their players have been invited to
the South West training day, being held on Easter Sunday, at Keynsham RFC.
This is the next stage for the players who will hope it will end with
them earning selection for the England Counties Under 20s.
CRFU President Peter James said “It is a great honour for these guys to have been selected due to their performances in the Jason Leonard Cup playing for Cornwall.”
The eight players represent four different Cornish clubs along with Bath
University. The majority come from
Redruth with all four players having played for the National League 2 South
team this season.
The players selected are;
Torin Clarke – Launceston
Connor Gilbert – Redruth
Jack Hodge – Redruth
Rory Mead – Bude
Mawgan Osborne – Penzance & Newlyn Colts
Jake Penprase – Bath University
Aaron Simmonds – Redruth
James Tucker – Redruth
Almost fifty players from eight counties have been invited to train at
Keynsham RFC. From that day the South West selectors will pick a South West
team, who will play against the other regions in Derbyshire on the weekend of 11
/ 12 May.
The Cornwall U20 team manager Colin Hatch said; -”These eight guys are now up against the best players from our region this season, and will need to perform on the day to get selected for the South West team. We are all immensely proud of their achievement in being selected and representing Cornwall at this level. We would also like to thank Trelawny’s Army Supporters Club, who once again have assisted these young guys with their travelling expenses to this training session in Bristol.”
Trelawny’s Army are delighted to help with the cost of travel for the lads and wish them every success.
The victorious Penzance & Newlyn Colts lift the Cup
Penzance & Newlyn Colts completed the first leg of a hoped for double by lifting the Colts Cup against St. Austell, reports Bill Hooper from Tregorrick Park.
They will have to wait to see if they can also land the Colts league.
The game was ended
some six minutes from time by the referee following a neck injury to one of the
Pirates’ colts however; the result had already been secured.
St. Austell, roared
on by a vociferous home crowd, began brightly taking a 6-0 lead early on thanks
to a couple of Ashley Gilder penalties.
Pirates weathered a
sin-binning of their fly-half to strike back with a good try scored by No.8
Mawgan Osborne, converted by scrum-half Alistair Stacey to take a lead they
would never relinquish.
Stacey then kicked a
penalty before scoring and unconverted try near half-time following a strong
run from flanker Oliver Mackenzie.
Despite some
promising phases Saints were unable to get a crucial score, instead Pirates
went further ahead with a try from skipper Toby Osborne.
Stacey kicked a
penalty to put Pirates more than two scores ahead before the unfortunate injury
brought the game to a premature end.
In the other finals
played Launceston defeated Camborne 40-22 to win the Shield.
Saltash won 33-10
against Truro in the Plate and Newquay Hornets got the better of Penryn 38-10
in the Bowl.
A good day’s rugby
and thanks must go to St. Austell RFC for their organisation and to Lee Maher
from the Colts section for running the day.
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